The Sentinel, by Sam Beckett
by Susan M. M
Summary: Dr. Sam Beckett leaps into Det. Jim Ellison.  Can he stop the Iceman?  Can he stop Blair Sandburg from lying about his dissertation?  Four lives are at stake if he fails, and one of them is his own.
1. Chapter 1

**Standard Fanfic Disclaimer** that wouldn't last ten seconds in a court of law: These aren't my characters. I'm just borrowing them, and will return them (relatively) undamaged - or at least suitably bandaged - to their original owners. Unless their original owners don't want them, in which case I will happily take 'em off their hands. Based on characters and situations created by Danny Bilson, Paul DeMeo, and Donald Bellisario. This story originally appeared in a slightly different form in the Canadian fanzine Chinook # 3. (I'm editing out some of the editor's changes, so you can think of this as the director's cut.)

'**The Sentinel' by Sam Beckett**

**By Susan M. M.**

_The Sentinel / Quantum Leap_ crossover

**2007 FanQ Honorable Mention for Best MultiMedia Story**

Simon Banks, a tall African-American captain in the Cascade Police Department, sat at his desk and asked, "What are we going to do, Jim? By tomorrow morning, I have to have a full report on his desk, and I don't know what I'm going to report. You know what that means? Every single case you worked on is going to be brought up for review. That means the board of inquiry. IA's going to get involved."

"Captain, before we hear back from the review board or the brass tells us to go pack our bags," replied Detective Jim Ellison, "I'd like to go back to things the way they were before Sandburg, when I worked alone." Although he had been out of the army several years, his brown hair was still cut military short.

Simon looked at the tall, muscular policeman. "Did you talk to Blair about this?"

"It's not his call, Captain. This is my decision. His ride is over." Jim's blue eyes radiated emotion, although whether hurt or anger Simon couldn't tell. "I want to go back to being a cop, just a regular cop. And with this sentinel thing hanging over us, it's always right there and I… I'm tired of it. I just want out."

"Well, maybe that's for the best," Simon allowed. He stood and went around his desk to stand next to Jim by the table. "I got this picture back from the rally. Take a look. You were that close until your paparazzi got in the way."

Jim leaned over the table to look at the photograph.

Sam Beckett _leapt_. He found himself in an office, looking at a picture.

Outside the building, on a nearby roof, Klaus Zeller, the assassin for hire known to law enforcement agencies around the world as 'The Iceman,' aimed carefully into Simon's office. He stared down the scope of his custom-made rifle. He pulled the trigger; the bullet flew.

Klaus' Zeller's bullet flew over Sam's back, through Simon's chest, and on through the window. It continued through Megan Connor's shoulder and landed in the doorframe, missing Blair Sandburg by inches as he entered the detectives' bullpen. Megan fell to the ground. Simon collapsed before Sam could catch him. Blair ran to Megan's side.

Sam leaned over Simon. "Oh, boy." Although his leaping through time had Swiss-cheesed his memory, Sam remembered enough of his medical training to begin first aid and yell for 911.

Joel Taggert, a heavy-set African-American, entered Simon's office. "Oh, my God!."

"Get help," Sam ordered. "I'm trying to stop the bleeding."

In the bullpen, Blair held a hand over Megan's shoulder. "Get a doctor, quick!"

"Sandy," the Australian policewoman mur mured in an Australian accent.

At the hospital, Sam Beckett and Blair Sandburg looked throughstared through the windows of the ICU. Joel Taggert came up to join them. He looked through the window at Simon Banks and Megan Connor lying there, IVs hooked into their arms. "Hey, guys. How are they?" Joel asked.

"The doctor says they're in serious condition," Sam replied. In his normal incarnation, he was a tall man with light brown hair and green eyes. However, he'd caught a peek of himself reflected in a window and realized that to everyone around him, he looked like Jim Ellison, the man into whose life he had leapt.

"Yeah, they've got to go into surgery soon," Blair added.

"As soon as they're stabilized." Had it been his call, Sam would have had them in surgery already, but he was a cop in this incarnation, not a doctor.

"I thought you should know that the bullet is a titanium alloy with a Teflon coating, like the one that hit the dummy," Joel said.

"Uh-huh." Sam had no idea what that meant.

"Listen, I'm going to give blood, and then I got the next shift with Bartley." Joel shook his head. "Never should have happened like this." He nodded a goodbye and left.

"No one was expecting this," Blair said.

"No one ever is." Once again, Sam sought refuge in platitudes. It was a good way to cover up when he had no idea what he was doing, or who he was supposed to be.

A hologram of a dark-haired man in a painfully loud suit appeared: Al Calavicci, Sam's observer from Project Quantum Leap.

"Excuse me a minute. Call of nature." Sam walked off toward the men's room, where he and Al could have some privacy. Since only he could see or hear Al, he frequently got some funny looks if they tried to carry on a discussion in public.

After a quick glance to ensure the bathroom was empty, Sam asked, "Al, why haven't I leaped out? I saved that cop's life."

"Because you're not here to save Simon Banks's life. He would've survived anyway. You're here to save Blair Sandburg's career, and in the process, four lives," Al informed him. Admiral Albert Calavicci was a stocky man who never wore his uniform if he could possibly avoid it. Today he had on a purple checked suit with a silver lamé tie.

"Four lives?" the time traveller repeated.

Al looked up at his friend. Although he held the handlink to Ziggy, he didn't so much as glance at it. "You're Jim Ellison, one of Cascade PD's best investigators. You're also a sentinel."

"A what?" Sam asked.

"A sentinel—a tribal guardian. Sir Richard Burton wrote about them."

"Burton? The actor?" Sam knew that leaping through time, occupying other people's lives, affected his memory, but he thought he remembered that Richard Burton was one of Elizabeth Taylor's ex-husbands. Or was it one of Zsa Zsa Gabor's? What could he possibly have to do with tribal guardians?

"No, no, Richard Burton, the explorer. The one who translated _The Arabian Nights_," Al corrected him. "Anyhow, in the last century, he wrote about these sentinels—special warriors and watchdogs that many primitive tribes had—men who could sense danger at a distance."

Sam was puzzled. "What's this got to do with me?"

"Ellison is a modern day sentinel. All five of his senses are heightened. Blair Sandburg, the long-haired fellow you were talking to," Al explained at Sam's blank look, "is an anthropology grad student. He's doing did his dissertation on sentinels. Unfortunately," Al took a deep breath, "the rough draft of his dissertation was given to a publisher before he submitted it to the university, before he could edit out Ellison's name. The publisher, Sid Graham, released excerpts to the press. Now Ellison's life is a mess, Blair and Naomi feel guilty, and if you don't fix things, he's gonna make the biggest mistake of his life tomorrow."

"He gave his dissertation to a publisher before turning it into the university? And without editing out the name of a living subject? He **ought** to feel guilty," Sam declared. As an afterthought, he asked, "Who's Naomi?"

"Naomi Sandburg, Blair's mother. Beautiful woman. Unfortunately, a little ditzy. She e-mailed the rough draft of the dissertation to an ex-boyfriend… although how Naomi ever wound up with a slimeball like Sid Graham, I'll never know," Al muttered under his breath. "She wanted Graham to make some constructive criticism, help Blair get the paper ready for submission to the university. He took one look at it and saw 'bestseller'. He's been trying to throw money in Blair's face, and ignoring Blair's all demands to return the manuscript. He's the one who passed the word to the paparazzi, without Blair's knowledge or consent."

Sam thought a moment. "So how does Ziggy want me to save a career and four lives? And how does saving an anthropologist's career save lives?"

"Tomorrow, Blair is going to give a press conference, repudiating his dissertation. He's going to claim the whole thing is a fraud, a work of fiction. A few days later, Blair will be offered a position in the Cascade Police Department.," Al explained,. "He's been a police observer for the past few years, officially doing research on the modern police force as a closed society, but acting actually working with Ellison, helping him use his senses without being overwhelmed by all the sensory input."

Al took a deep breath. "We're only a few months away from 'real time',' so the rest of Ziggy's predictions are iffy. She says that since Blair just isn't cop material, there's a 70% chance that he'll be killed in the line of duty, probably sometime in the next two to three years. If so, it's fifty/fifty that Ellison will keep his sanity. Apparently the ancient sentinels had a partner, a guide, and Blair's been filling that role. Without him…."

"Without him, sensory overload," Sam realized.

"If Blair dies… this is hypothetical, you under stand… if Blair dies, there's a good chance that Ellison won't survive him long. Ziggy says 20% chance of suicide, 30% chance of being killed in the line of duty, distracted by his senses, and 50% of losing his marbles and winding up in an institution."

"You said four lives. Who are the other two?"

"You and me," confessed Al quietly.

"What?"

"Blair's my son, Sam."

"Your what?" Sam Beckett knew his memory wasn't what it should be, but Al was his best friend. He thought he'd remember if Al had mentioned a son before.

Al shrugged. "Naomi thought astronauts were sexy, and I didn't want to disagree with her. It was just a fling, but…." He swallowed uneasily. "Ziggy predicts that if he's killed, I'll fall off the wagon after the funeral. With my best friend lost in time, and my son dead—my only child, as far as I know—there's an 80% chance that if Blair dies, I'll lose it. Either drown myself into a drunken stupor, or get killed in a drunk driving accident." Al didn't mention the odds Ziggy had quoted him that he might commit suicide. "And without me, you'll have no project observer to assist you. We won't be able to contact you, and we may never get you back. So this—this is important, Sam."

"Oh, boy," Sam muttered.


	2. Chapter 2

At Roger Haber's gun and hobby shop, a weaponsmaker and an assassin were having a quiet conversation.

"The police have subpoenaed all the files at Gunderson Shipping. They must be getting close," Roger warned.

"Are they after you?" asked Zeller.

"Oh, no, but I do have some more bad news. A source of mine at the DA's office told me Jack Bartley is still alive. Your bullet hit a dummy. The whole thing was a set-up. They've got him in a safe house," Roger informed him.

"He won't come out until after the ratification vote or I'm caught," Zeller realized.

"Gunderson doesn't know yet. They think you succeeded."

"And I will," Zeller promised. Gunderson Shipping had paid him to kill labour organizer Jack Bartley, and the Iceman never reneged on a contract.

**xXx**

Naomi sat on the bed, crying. She was an attractive redhead, what the French called 'a woman of uncertain age'. She didn't normally give in to tears — she was far too optimistic — but all her attempts to help her son had just wrecked both his life and his best friend's life. She looked completely lost, as if she had no idea what to do.

Al's holographic image stared at her. "It's not your fault, Naomi. You just wanted to help."

She wiped her face with a Kleenex tissue.

"Please don't cry, Naomi. I never could stand a woman's tears," Al told her. "He's a good kid. You did a great job raising him. Trust him to get through this all right. Sam's gonna help him, and Sam's the smartest person I know."

Naomi reached for another Kleenex as more tears rolled down her face.

"Why didn't you let me be a part of his life, Naomi? You wouldn't even let me take a blood test, or pay child support when I found out about him," Al complained. "I don't know how good a father I would've been, but I would've tried."

He remembered when he'd tracked her down, after he'd learned—three or four years after the fact—that Naomi had a child who might be his. The free spirit who thought astronauts were sexy hadn't felt the same about career navy officers. When she realized that his naval rank wasn't an honorary title for an astronaut, that he was part of the military-industrial complex she despised and that he had every intention of staying in the navy, she hadn't wanted anything more to do with him. She'd reminded him that he hadn't been her only lover at the time, and that others — Timothy Leary, Mickey Dolenz, Jimi Hendrix, Harrison Blackwood — were equally likely. He'd kept an eye on her and Blair, shamelessly using navy resources to do so. He'd seen to it she hadn't starved, even though it had taken some creative accounting to make sure she didn't realize the money was coming from him. But she'd never let him back into her bed, into her life, or into their son's life. And more than one whisky bottle he'd emptied over the years had been because of that.

He tried to kiss her. His lips passed right through her face and touched only empty air in the Imaging Chamber.

**xXx**

Naomi stepped out onto the balcony. In the loft that her son shared with Jim, Blair sat in front of the balcony, looking at his dissertation. The day was lovely, warm and sunny, but he ignored the weather. She could guess what he was brooding over: that he'd let Jim down. He was so upset about the paparazzi and the university staff. The way the reporters were acting was bad enough, but the university chancellor—the woman was so determined to see Rainier University make the newspapers that she'd forgotten every shred of professional ethics she'd ever known.

Naomi walked up behind him. She felt her son's pain. When Blair had asked her not to read his dissertation, she'd honestly thought he was simply being overcritical of the flaws in any rough draft. E-mailing it to Sid sight unseen had seemed a way to keep her promise and still help her boy. She'd only wanted Sid to review it and make a few suggestions. Yet she had managed to ruin her son's life, and his best friend's. And then when she'd contacted Lars, an old friend who was masseur to one of the members of the nominating committee for the Nobel Prize, somehow she'd made things worse instead of better. Her aura must be out of focus; she simply couldn't do anything right.

"Will you ever forgive me for making such a mess of things?" she asked.

"That's okay, Mom," Blair lied. "We're all going to be fine."

"Do you still love me even with all this?"

Blair put down his manuscript and stood up. "Oh, Mom, come on. Don't be silly." He hugged her.

"I'm sorry," Naomi murmured.

"Of course I do. Always. I mean, we were all doing what we thought was right. Right?" He reminded her, "Nothing happens in the universe randomly. It's all for a reason. That's part of what I was writing about. I always wondered if my work would ever amount to anything. If it's taught me one thing, it's taught me that Jim is right. I got it all right here. The brass ring. And now I know what to do. So why don't you go call Sid?"

"Okay, sweetie," she agreed.

**xXx**

Later that day, outside Haber's gun and hobby shop, Sam pulled Jim's truck up behind Joel's car. Joel got out of his sedan and joined Sam in the truck.

"Hey, Jim."

"Joel," Al prompted. "Joel Taggert."

"Joel. What's going on?" Sam asked.

"Roger Haber. He owns the hobby shop. Got a tip that Zeller's meeting him here around 3:00."

Sam glanced at his watch. "It's nearly three now."

"Zeller is the hitman who's been hired to kill Bartley, and whom they suspect of shooting your captain," Al reminded him.

Sam scowled. He knew that; Al had already given him a thorough briefing. His short-term memory was fine. It was his long-term memory that had been Swiss-cheesed.

"Anonymous tip," Joel continued. "But word is that Haber's got a sideline business building made-to-order weapons."

"Hmm." Sam wasn't sure how to reply to that.

A slight man, with a slim build, a pale complex ion, and black, slicked-back hair walked down the sidewalk and entered the shop.

"That's him. That's Zeller," Al said.

"There he is now," Sam pointed out.

Joel asked, "So what do you think? Do we take him down or call for backup?"

"Backup is always a good idea," Sam replied. He didn't know what would happen to him if the body he was inhabiting was killed, and he didn't want to find out.

"You make the call. I'll just mosey down the street casual-like," Joel said. He got out of the truck and started to walk down the street toward the shop. Sam stared at the communications equipment, wondering how to call for backup. It had been far too long since he'd watched reruns of _Adam-12_ or _Hill Street Blues._

Before he could figure out what to do, the building exploded.

**xXx**

A CSI technician shook her head. "The explosion was deliberately rigged. It looks like it was set off by some gunpowder stored in the back."

"Any bodies?" Joel asked.

"One, burned beyond recognition. Could be a day or two before we get a positive ID. We'll start checking dental records," she told them.

"No sign of Roger Haber. The body's got to be Zeller," predicted Joel.

"You think Haber was trying to get rid of loose ends?" Sam asked.

"More likely trying to cut his links to Gunderson," Joel guessed. "Destroy all the evidence so we can't prove anything against him, no matter what we suspect, and kill Zeller so he couldn't testify against him."

"Maybe,—" Sam began, when Al's holographic image appeared.

"Sam! It's almost time for the press conference," Al told him. "You've got to get to the university."

Sam tried to think of an excuse. "Let me check with some of my sources." _What_ _would a real cop say_, he wondered. _Sources? Snitches?_ "I've got an idea I want to check out. I'll see you at the station later."

"Okay," Joel agreed, knowing Ellison's hunches were better than most detectives' facts. "Good luck."

Sam hurried for Jim's truck.


	3. Blair's Dissertation

Blair stood in a university classroom. The seats that would normally be filled by students were taken by reporters. Naomi squeezed his hand. Taking a deep breath, Blair walked to the podium at the front of the room.

"Hi. Thank you all for coming. I just have a short speech prepared here. Um, in our media-informed culture—"

"Hold it, Blair." Sam stepped through the door.

"It's the sentinel!" one of the reporters yelled.

Dozens of flash bulbs went off in Sam's face. He raised his hand to cover his eyes, blinded by the lights.

"Look how he's reacting to the lights," another reporter said. He pulled a dog whistle out of his pocket and blew it. He frowned when Sam gave no reaction to the ultrasonic whistle.

"The only one who wouldn't react to all those flash bulbs is Helen Keller." Sam walked to the podium and stood beside Blair. "I have a few things to say."

"Jim, I—" Blair began.

"It's OK okay," Sam whispered. "I'm not gonna let you throw your life away."

Al's holographic image walked through the podium and looked at Blair's notes. He read aloud softly: " 'Immoral and unethical act. My dissertation 'The Sentinel' is a fraud'." He looked his illegitimate son in the eye. "Didn't Naomi tell you that the Calavicci are self-centered wretches? What are you doing pulling this Sydney Carton act?"

Blair, of course, neither saw nor heard him.

"Chancellor Edwards, Mr. Graham, ladies and gentlemen of the Fourth Estate: I have a few things I'd like to say to you." Sam turned his head, making eye contact with as many of the audience as he could. "You're vultures. Nothing but a pack of vultures. And when I tell you what really happened, you're going to feel like a pack of jackasses." He paused for dramatic effect. "I'd say something stronger than jackasses, but my mother wouldn't approve of my using language like that in public."

Blair looked up at him, startled. Jim never men tioned his mother.

"Chancellor Edwards, did Mr. Sandburg submit his dissertation to the university?" Sam asked.

"Well, not officially," she began, but then she was interrupted by two men.

"No, I did not," Blair stated emphatically.

At the same time, the head of Blair's dissertation committee, Dr. Tanaka, said, "He did not. The last thing I heard about Mr. Sandburg's dissertation was that he expected to finish the rough draft in a few days, and he wished to speak to me about polishing it and editing it when it was done."

"Chancellor Edwards, do you have so poor an opinion of the doctoral candidates at your school that you think one would be so stupid as to submit a dissertation using the real names of living people? Do you permit graduate students with that poor an understanding of professional ethics to work as teaching assistants?" Sam raised an eyebrow. "Or doesn't your university have a Human Subjects Committee?"

Ms. Edwards hemmed and hawed, flustered by the questions, and embarrassed by the answers.

Sam waited a moment for the information to sink into the audience's minds before continuing. "Sid Graham, senior editor with Berkshire Publishers." He pronounced the name and title scornfully. "Did Mr. Sandburg submit his dissertation to you or your company?"

"Well, uh—"

"No, I certainly did not," Blair declared firmly. "He acquired a copy by accident and refused to return it. Despite repeated requests," the long-haired grad student added for emphasis.

"Is that true, Mr. Graham? Is it true that despite the author's wishes—in spite of the author's demands—you not only refused to return the manuscript, but released excerpts to the press without his knowledge and consent?"

"His **mother** sent it to me on his behalf," Graham shouted out from the audience. His tone was defensive. Beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead. "I'm an old friend of the family. I was just trying to do right by the kid. Hey, I was nearly his stepfather."

Naomi stepped up to the podium. "Liar! I asked you to critique the rough draft. I never suggested that you publish it. And I certainly never considered marrying you!"

"You tell him, honey," Al cheered her on.

Sam turned toward Blair. "You might want to hire an attorney. You probably have grounds for a lawsuit—copyright violation, misappropriation and misuse of intellectual property, etc."

Suddenly cameras were aimed at Sid Graham, and flash bulbs were going off in **his** face.

Sam glanced at Blair's notes on the podium. "The document that Mr. Graham inadvertently obtained—the one from which he released excerpts without Mr. Sandburg's knowledge or permission—is 'a good piece of fiction'."

"You mean the whole thing is a hoax?" a reporter shouted out.

"No, I mean it's not his dissertation." Sam stepped away from the podium. Most reporters were good at interpreting kinesics. He wanted his body language to project an air of calm confidence, with just a soupcçon of amused contempt. "It's true Mr. Sandburg did his master's thesis on the sentinel phenomenon in tribal cultures, and that he considered doing his doctoral dissertation on the same subject."

Professor Tanaka raised a slender dark eyebrow. To the best of his knowledge, Blair's dissertation **was** on the sentinel phenomenon, both as it had existed in tribal cultures and how it still persisted in modern society. At least, it had been last week, the last time he spoke had spoken to Blair.

"It's true that I was one of Mr. Sandburg's research subjects, and that I have better than average vision." That wasn't technically a lie. Sam did have excellent night vision, and he figured Jim Ellison would rather be known as a man with exceptionally good eyesight than a superman with five heightened senses. "However, there's a big difference having one or two senses better than average, like a whisky sniffer at a distillery or a perfume tester, and the sort of superhero the media has been trying to make me out to be. Besides, Mr. Sandburg changed the topic of his dissertation quite some time ago." Sam took a deep breath. It was time for the whopper.

"Given your behavior, I'm willing to guess that most of you sharks are high school drop-outs." Sam stopped and smiled maliciously. "I'm sorry, that was rude to the Class _Selachii_ to compare you to them."

Out the corner of his eye, Sam could see Blair struggling to keep his face calm and impassive. He didn't want to spoil whatever Jim had up his sleeve, but he was finding it hard not to react when he heard his partner tossing around Latin names so casually, and pronouncing them correctly.

"You probably have no idea how much stress a doctoral candidate is under," Sam continued, as though he hadn't just insulted most of the audience. "Blair Sandburg teaches introductory classes in anthropology. He takes advanced classes himself. He does research on modern day closed societies, and works as a police observer. He spends more time in the library in a month than I have in my entire life. In order to relax, he scribbled a story of what things would be like **if** I had the powers of a sentinel. Since he'd spent so much time on the sentinel study before he changed topics, Bl-… Mr. Sandburg decided to do the story in the form of a dissertation. It was never intended for anyone else's eyes. It was just a silly bit of scribbling, like—…" Sam suddenly remembered a previous leap. "…Like the middle-aged housewives who write fan fiction about _Star Trek_ or _Starsky and Hutch._"

"If 'The Sentinel' was just a joke, why all the fuss? Why didn't you say so before?" demanded one of the reporters.

Blair sighed, very dramatically and very artificially. "What do you think we've been trying to do?"

"If it's a novel, then why protest at publication?" another journalist demanded suspiciously. "I never heard of an author who didn't want his story published."

"The reason Blair tried to get the manuscript back from Graham is because he used real names," Sam explained. "My name, my co-workers' names, even the names of real criminals. It's a mix of fact and fiction. If he decides to submit it for publication someday, it'll probably be under a pen name, and it'll take a lot of editing. To tell you the truth, some of it he wrote when he needed to vent, and parts are less than flattering to me and some of my co-workers. And sometimes," Sam glanced pointedly at Chancellor Edwards, "he used the names of people who annoyed him in real life when he needed a name for the bad guys."

A few heads nodded. Many reporters had half-written novels tucked into their desk drawers, and more than one had used the names of particularly obnoxious editors or ex-wives when they needed a villain's name.

"As for the idea of him being Nobel material, well," Sam shrugged, "he's bright, but he's no Sam Beckett."

Four or five reporters, the ones who normally covered the science beat, chuckled. The rest muttered, "Who?"

Sam turned to Blair. "Was there anything else you wanted to add?"

Blair smiled up at the man he thought was his roommate. "No, I think you pretty much covered it."

One reporter asked, "But, Mr. Sandburg, why did you put Ellison in your novel?"

"Didn't you ever tease your big brother?" Blair replied.

Al looked down at his handlink. "Sam, Ziggy thinks you've done it. As of today, Blair is still a graduate student at Rainier University, working on his dissertation on closed societies. And he's a student representative on the Human Subjects Committee. Since being an anthropologist is safer than being a cop, Ziggy predicts that Ellison and Blair will both survive." He looked from his son to his friend. "Thanks, Sam."

**xXx**

Sam picked up the medical chart hanging at the foot of Simon's bed and examined it carefully.

"Why are you bothering to look at that thing?" Simon half-asked, half-complained. "You know you can't read it."

Sam just smiled. He could read it, and he was pleased with it. The surgery had gone well, and the bullet had missed any major organs. Then he sensed the familiar tug, saw a blue light, and leaped out of Jim Ellison's body.

Jim felt woozy, disoriented. He stared in shock at Simon laying in a hospital bed. The last thing he remembered…. He couldn't remember the last thing he remembered, but he knew he hadn't been in a hospital.

"That was a good job you did at the press conference, Jim," Joel complimented him. "Best mix of truth and lies I've ever heard."

Jim raised one light brown eyebrow. _What press conference?_

"Officially, it's like Jim said; the whole thing is nothing but fiction," Simon said.

"Officially, sure," Joel agreed. "But the whole office knows the truth." The heavy-set detective turned to Jim. "Not that we'll say anything. Don't worry, Jim. The fuss will die down in a day or two."

Simon announced, "I'm more worried about Bartley dying in a day or two. Now that Zeller's out of the picture, he wants to have his rally after all."

"That's what Jim and I came down to tell you, Cap." Joel looked at Jim. "You want to break the bad news, or shall I?"

Since Jim had no idea what Joel was talking about, he said, "Be my guest."

"The coroner said the body at the hobby shop was Haber's. Unless Zeller was completely consumed in the fire, he's still out there, and he'll still be after Bartley," Joel predicted.

Jim took a deep breath. This must have been some variation of a zone-out. He'd better not tell Blair, or the kid would want to run ten thousand different types of tests. But crime wouldn't wait for zone-outs, or sleepwalking, or whatever had happened to him. Time to get back to work and catch the Iceman.

**The End**

_Author's Note:_ This story would've been impossible to write had not Becky transcribed the finale of _The Sentinel_ and posted it on the Internet. Some scenes were taken word for word from Bill Froehlich's "The Sentinel by Blair Sandburg." _Muchas gracias_, Becky.

Copyright Susan M. M., March 13, 2006 Based on characters and situations created by Danny Bilson, Paul DeMeo, and Donald Bellisario. No intent to defraud or break copyright—characters & setting merely borrowed. Previously published in the fanzine Chinook #3. Forgive my lack of modesty in bragging, but this story was the 2007 FanQ Honorable Mention for Best MultiMedia Story.


End file.
